Recruiters: Do You Know Your Marketing Strategy?

Job searching has changed over the past 20 or so years. A study released in December 2015 by The Boston Consulting Group titled “Job Seeker Trends 2015—Channels, Search Time, and Income Change” offers the following insights:

55 percent of job seekers use Internet job sites to look for a job.

33 percent believe Internet job sites are the most effective method to search for employment.

On average, people who used the Internet to search for a job are younger and more educated than others.

Internet job sites offer speed and ease of use, which enable job seekers to maximize the time spent on searching for employment.

Considering these statistics, it should be clear that since job seekers flock to the Internet to both search for and apply for employment, recruiters need to know how to optimize their job postings, web copy, and other digital assets to come up in candidates’ search results and attract top talent. In other words: they need to apply Internet marketing strategies to their recruitment campaigns. There are three main points to keep in mind:

Provide correct, comprehensive job descriptions. Whether job seekers begin their search in Google or in a job site like Monster.com, they invariably start by entering a keyword that describes the position they’re looking for. Oftentimes, they’ll enter a combination of keywords, for example to search for specific skill requirements, companies, or locations. That’s why as a recruiter writing job descriptions, it’s critical that you have a good knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO). This includes knowing how to determine the right keywords, meta descriptions, tags, and more—as well as how to produce web copy that Google’s algorithms recognize as quality content.

Effectively communicate your client’s employer brand. Before deciding to apply for a job, many of today’s workers research employers to discover if they share the same values; whether the company is socially and/or environmentally responsible; and how the organization treats its employees. With social media and sites like Glassdoor.com making it easy for people to communicate both positive and negative information (correct or not) about companies, it’s important that you become a partner to your clients and help them communicate what their organizations stand for. To do this, you need to work with their marketing divisions to determine how to positively and accurately communicate their employer brand.

Use Google Analytics and other optimization tools. Successful Internet marketers use data to drive their marketing campaigns—and so should you. Tools like Google Analytics allow you to track which keywords are most effective; where your traffic is coming from; and what they do once they’re on your site. You can learn how to use this data to continuously fine-tune your SEO campaigns and streamline your recruitment funnel in order to achieve the best results.

It’s important to understand that Internet marketing is a constantly evolving field. And that means that as a forward-thinking recruiter, you need to learn how to apply Internet marketing to the benefit of your clients, your talent pool, and ultimately, yourself.

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